This morning I discovered that the new toothpaste I bought had vanished. Knowing my 1-year-old son’s love of raiding shopping bags I worked out quickly what had happened to it: the where proved more elusive, and to avoid being late I decided to nick his toothpaste. Here are my science findings as an adult using children’s toothpaste:

1. It has an odd viscosity whereby it is harder to squeeze out of the tube (for obvious reasons) but then is bounced right off the brush by even the slightest most glancing stream of tap water.

2. It is incredibly sweet: since I ASSUME they’re not putting sugar in toothpaste they should totally be using whatever sweetener they do use in actual diet food.

3. It clings to your inner mouth and leaves your teeth feeling considerably less clean than they did before you start. My mouth felt k-horrible all morning until a cup of tea brought some palate normality back.

My conclusion: todays kids have got it bad. Bring back scrubbing yr mouth with moss and woad, or whatever our forefathers used.